Lawrence, Regina G. 1961-

PERSONAL:

Born 1961. Education: Metropolitan State College, Denver, CO, B.A., 1985; University of Colorado at Denver, M.A., 1991; University of Washington, Seattle, Ph.D., 1997.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Mark O. Hatfield School of Government, Portland State University, URBN 650, 506 S.W. Mill St., Portland, OR 97207. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Political scientist, educator, and writer. University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, WA, adjunct faculty member in the department of government; University of Washington, Seattle, lecturer in the department of political science, 1997-98; Seattle University, Seattle, lecturer in the department of political science, 1997-98; Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, assistant professor of political science, 1998-99; Portland State University, Mark O. Hatfield School of Government, Portland, OR, assistant professor, 1999-2002, associate professor of political science, 2002—.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Goldsmith Research Award, Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 1995; University of Washington dissertation fellowship, 1996; Top Paper in Political Communication Award (cowinner), International Communication Association, for "The Exxon Valdez and Event-Driven Policy Discourse," 1999; Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy fellow, 2003.

WRITINGS:

The Politics of Force: Media and the Construction of Police Brutality, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 2000.

(With W. Lance Bennett and Steven Livingston) When the Press Fails: Political Power and the News Media from Iraq to Katrina, University of Chicago Press (Chicago, IL), 2007.

Contributor to books, including Politics, Crime Control, and Culture, edited by Stuart A. Scheingold, Dartmouth Publishing (Hampshire, England), 1997; American Disasters: A Reader, edited by Stephen Biel, New York University Press (New York, NY), 2001; and Politics, Discourse, and American Society: New Agendas, edited by Roderick Hart and Bartholemew Sparrow, Rowman & Littlefield Press (New York, NY), 2001. Contributor to periodicals, including Newsday, Social Science Quarterly, Political Communication, Spill Science & Technology Bulletin, Political Science Quarterly, and Political Communication.

SIDELIGHTS:

Historian Regina G. Lawrence is interested in media coverage of public policy issues and of the criminal justice system, the politics of defining a problem in public debate, and how the new media impacts the public's understanding of a debate. In her book The Politics of Force: Media and the Construction of Police Brutality, the author takes a comprehensive look at the media coverage of police brutality incidents in Los Angeles and New York. During the course of the book, the author presents her case that the media is often deficient in its coverage of police brutality and, at times, works with the police to discredit those who have been abused or killed by the police. The author also investigates police violence itself. Referring to The Politics of Force as "a study of how the mass media can act as an informal screening mechanism for how social problems get defined," Nina C. Ayoub, writing in the Chronicle of Higher Education, added that the author presents her case that many incidents of police brutality and the ensuing media coverage are clouded by "an inherent ambiguity … that begs investigation." A Los Angeles magazine contributor commented that the author "doesn't pull any punches."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Chronicle of Higher Education, December 1, 2000, Nina C. Ayoub, review of The Politics of Force: Media and the Construction of Police Brutality.

Los Angeles, November, 2000, review of The Politics of Force, p. 34.

ONLINE

Portland State University, Division of Political Science Web site,http://www.upa.pdx.edu/ (February 23, 2007), curriculum vitae and faculty profile of author.